For the past 15 years or so I have been trading at shows and festivals under the name of 'J Goodbody & Co' selling funky clothing(the name stems from my eh, er, literal love of alliteration, the first product I imported I branded 'Goodbody's Gumboots')
I feel a bit old for that now.

I aim to have an outdoor gadget shop kinda thingy up and running next show season, selling funky toys for boys and big boys, and initially will be selling radio control toys in a shopping centre over Christmas.

The only name that appeals to me so far is 'Free Air'
Can you think of a more apposite, edgy, anything that I can trade under?
I know I have access to the finest minds here.

richard

Last edited by Richard on Wed Oct 25, 2006 9:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

What kind of toys will you eventually be selling? Are we talking off-road four-wheelers and dirt bikes or are we talking remote control airplanes and toy boats, etc? What do you want these boys to get out of your product? Do you want them to feel a certain way or remember a fond childhood memory? That kind of information can help you choose a name with the right "flavor".

Laugh if you must but I believe that American spelling actually is more *pure* to the English language than all those rampant "u's" you guys stuff in words where they just don't belong. I mean, "colour"? Every time I see it spelled that way I think hear "culloor"

Thanks, you are making me focus through lots of different eyes.
Shows and festivals bring 1000s of good time couples and families together in huge campsites, all with the same aim of having fun.
I want to help enable that, the evenings and nights can be magical times. Stuff for cool campers, flashy lighty things, retro iconic outdoor games (swingball, kites etc) childhood memories, as well as cross generational fun. Funky gadgets and toys.
Sorrry I am having trouble thinking here as my line keeps hanging up.

Saturn wrote:What I'd like to know is how did this begin, or rather when - pre or post revolution?

Any idea my American friends?

Well, I don't have a direct answer to that question, but I have an interesting article about American and British English I found on the BBC.com and also a really neat series about American English (and accents) called "Do You Speak American" from PBS here in the States. First, here's the link to the American English series--very interesting and fun to search through:

And here's the article I found on the BBC. . .atthe bottom is a link to the page where I found the article.

Language Change by Philippa Law

Americanisation - Don't worry, it's not as bad as you might think
It's one issue that really gets people's goat: Americanisms. Tony Robinson from Cheltenham says, "In these days of mass communication it is sad to see the English language being battered by the ever advancing tide of Americanism."
Mark Hughes from Walsall doesn't like it either: "The thing that drives me demented is the rampant Americanisation of everything, especially British English, and the habit of turning nouns into verbs, such as prioritise and incentivise. Yuk!"
British English borrows lots of words from American English. Prioritise was apparently coined during the 1972 presidential election; teenager, blizzard and belittle originated in the USA and, unsurprisingly, there are umpteen computer-related terms that come from the United States.
It's not always obvious to speakers where new words have emerged from. As Virginia Reed from California writes, "I thought incentivise was 'all your fault'!"

The American linguist John Algeo notes a propensity in the UK to attribute changes in British English to the influence of the USA, whether it's justified or not: "The assumption is that anything new is American and thus objectionable on double grounds."
An example of misattribution is the word controversy. Some people pronounce it with the stress on the first syllable: CONtroversy; others stress the second: conTROVersy. It's a widely-held belief that the second, newer pronunciation is an Americanism, but it isn't - it originated in the UK.
And for those of you who don't like the phrase I guess..., did you know that the word gesse (for think or suppose) was common in England in the Middle Ages, and I gesse... crops up in Chaucer?
Patsy from Cornwall deplores Americanisms: "Let us ensure that future generations learn to use English correctly. We should be aware that the English language originated in England and was taken from here to other English speaking countries."

She's right that English originated in England, but it's not right to imply that other varieties of English are versions of 'our' language. Americans don't speak a different version of British English; English speakers in the UK and the USA speak modern dialects which have both evolved from 16th century English. Today's British English is no nearer that common ancestor than American English is!

As it happens, American English has been more conservative than British English in some respects. It has retained the third syllable of words like library and secretary, whilst many British dialects use the newer forms secretree and libree. Old words like diaper and fall are still used in America but have been replaced by new words (nappy and autumn) in Britain.

Why do so many people hate Americanisms? The word itself suggests it's something to do with America, rather than linguistic borrowing in general. As the linguist Steve Jones points out: "Ever heard jodhpurs referred to as an 'Indianism' or karaoke as a 'Japism'?"
He suggests that, "It would seem that when folk complain about the Americanisation of the language, their complaint is really about the insidious effect of Americanisation on our culture."
Whatever your feelings are towards Americanisms, there's no reason to think we'll all turn American any time soon. As Peter Trudgill explains, our language is most influenced by the people we interact with, not by watching TV. Even though the American and British vocabularies are getting more similar, our accents and pronunciation are more different than they have ever been - and are growing further apart.